Cozy SAM (Where Derwent Pencils Win Again)

 

3/15/26 Mountains, Alexander Calder, Seattle Art Museum

On a chilly morning following our freaky snowfall, I was more than happy to spend a few hours with USk inside the cozy Seattle Art Museum. Since my white Derwent Drawing pencil with black paper have been serving me well at art museums, both SAM and the Asian Museum, I gave them a shot on Calder’s work, Mountains, which I hadn’t seen before. All black, the sheet-metal sculpture stands with the dark elevators behind it on one side, so I walked around it to find an angle with a lighter-colored background (above). That’s when I discovered the round hole in the center – such a beautiful counterpoint to all the sharp angles.

That took longer than I wanted; by the time I was done, I was ready for lunch. As Kate and I chatted over our lunches at the SAM café, I caught a sideview of the whimsical Little Cloud Sky, an installation hanging over the lobby (the front view I sketched several months ago shows the clouds’ smiling faces).

SAM cafe and lobby

I had time for one more sketch before the throwdown. I went back upstairs where a horse had caught my eye earlier. By contemporary artist Deborah Butterfield, life-size Pascal is made of steel and iron. Instead of white on black, I pulled out a couple of dark Derwent Drawing pencils and a Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook (my favorite paper pairing with these luscious pencils).

Pascal, Deborah Butterfield

With graphite, I never really enjoyed sketching inside museum exhibits. But the restriction is “pencil,” not graphite, and Derwent Drawing pencils have liberated me!

Master Copies of Van Gogh

 

3/10/26 Master copy of Vincent Van Gogh

A website called Draw Paint Academy recently crossed my radar; in particular, an article about the lesser-known works of Vincent Van Gogh. Since I have no formal education in art history, I appreciate learning from writers who can talk about masterworks in a layperson’s language without getting all academic-y.

Two paintings caught my attention: Trees in the Asylum Garden and Saint-Paul Hospital Park (both from 1889). Especially struck by the vibrant color contrasts and dynamic brush strokes (the paintings seem to shimmer and vibrate), I felt inspired to make master copies.

I wasn’t going to use oil paints, of course, but I thought about what dry medium at my disposal might be able to emulate those hatchmark-like brush strokes. Although I hadn’t used them in a long time, Prismacolor Art Stix had come up in a recent conversation with Roy and Mary Jean, so they were out on my desk. Basically block-shaped colored pencils on steroids, they could make flat, broad strokes, and my set includes a good range of colors. Why not? (Related geeky afterthought: Imagine if Derwent made their Drawing Pencil cores in a block form! Be still my heart!)

It’s always instructive and illuminating to copy a masterwork. For one thing, the palettes of these two paintings look so cohesive that I thought the range of hues would be fairly limited, but once I started trying to match them all, I was surprised by how many colors are in them. You know me and my limited palettes; these were boldly outside my comfort zone!

3/12/26 Master copy of Vincent Van Gogh

I noticed that Van Gogh liked to outline shapes with a dark color. Did he “draw” the shapes first and then fill them in? Or did he paint the shapes, and outline later? I’ve seen this in his other works too, but it wasn’t until I copied these myself that I studied the paintings with those questions in mind. The technique caught my attention because it flies in the face of the traditional painting instruction we read in books or hear from instructors: Objects in reality never have lines around them; avoid drawing them (or avoid letting them show in the painting).

One thing I had difficulty with, especially using a dry medium, was covering the entire “canvas” with color as he did (and as most painters do). Sometimes I think this is one of the biggest differences between a sketcher (at least this sketcher) and a painter: I never feel compelled to cover the entire page, and, in fact, I prefer to leave white space. That’s just my style, but it’s also a limitation of my chosen media. It would be impractical and time consuming to cover every speck of paper surface with colored pencils or even crayons. With none of the grace but maybe at least some of the energy, I tried my best to emulate the spirit of Van Gogh’s gestures.

There’s plenty more to study and learn from copying Van Gogh (or any master). I’ll put this in my doomscrolling prevention tool kit. It seems like master copying might be too mentally taxing for late-evening work, and it was certainly not relaxing as, for example, sketching from my own reference photos with Derwent Drawing pencils. But trying to emulate another work takes away the need to be expressive in my own way. In any case, I recommend it.

No limited palette for Vincent!

One Week 100 People, Year 10, Part 2

 

3/12/26 Green Lake Starbucks

What would have been Day 3 turned out to be too busy to sketch people, but I kept apace on Day 4. I began in the morning at Starbucks, where I caught a crew of Seattle Public Utility workers, five men of all colors, taking a long break with lively discussions. I wish I could have composed them all on the same page, but sometimes some were blocked, then others, and I was afraid they’d all get up and leave at any moment.

Although I caught a few on my walk, most of the rest came from my parked car at a Northgate strip mall. It wasn’t as busy as the grocery store where I had sketched earlier, so I had to be more patient; it must be like waiting in a duck blind! Bonus points: three dogs!

3/12/26 Green Lake and Northgate 

Northgate Plaza strip mall parking lot

We all woke on Friday the 13th, the final day of One Week 100 People, to the season’s unseasonable first snowfall! Whaaat??! As I’m skittish about driving if I see even one flake falling, I gratefully accepted Kim’s offer of a ride to Bellevue Square retail mall. It’s become an annual tradition for USk Seattle to work on 100 People there. Despite the joint outing with Eastside Sketchers, the snow must have kept many away, as we had a small turnout.

3/13/26 Bellevue Square

The mall is always a fruitful location for drawing people – so many small stories everywhere. It’s also just a fun place to people-watch. So different from Seattle, the women really dress to the nines in Bellevue. I especially enjoyed the formidable challenge of sketching people walking up and down stairs, which was easy to see through the transparent walls of the stairwells.

I apparently can't count while I draw!

I thought I was done, but as I waited for others to show up for the throwdown, I couldn't resist
drawing this dog (only one of two I saw at the mall that day)!

I was planning to sketch all 100 people in the large lavender Uglybook, but I didn’t estimate well and ran out of pages on Day 4. I had just enough left in the orange book, though, to finish off One Week 100 People. With that, I could put both the large lavender and the large orange Uglybooks into my bookcase of completed sketchbooks (I’ve officially decided that this is the year of completing partially filled sketchbooks).

Small but hardy turnout!

One Week 100 People, Year 10, Part 1

 

3/9/26 Metro Market parking lot, Crown Hill neighborhood

Although I participate in a few annual drawing challenges regularly and others more sporadically, my all-time favorite is One Week 100 People. Reading Marc Taro Holmes’ blog reminded me that this was the 10^th year of the challenge, which means I’ve participated for 10 consecutive years!

If you scroll through all the years, you’ll see that my style hasn’t changed much, nor has my goal: To capture people from life as simply as possible but also as unique individuals, not generic symbols. At least one year, I went to a studio life-drawing session for some part of the hundred. During the pandemic, I made self-portraits from a mirror – the only year I didn’t hit a hundred! All the other sketches were done in public spaces capturing whoever I saw. It’s all been so much fun while being great practice.

Sketching from my car in a grocery store parking lot has become a reliable though challenging standby: A regular stream of people going in and out. My favorite part is when they load groceries into their cars. With only seconds per sketch, it’s often frustrating, but I enjoy that tension. By comparison, Metro Market’s café was slow.

Metro Market cafe

That was Day 1. The next day, Roy, Mary Jean and I met at Third Place Commons to work on our hundred together. We all noted that the place was full of ideal “victims”: Some groups held meetings; others played cards. A crafting group was working on needlework and knitting; another group was painting and drawing. I caught a trio of bluegrass musicians jamming together. The best part: Almost everyone hardly moved!

3/10/26 Third Place Commons, Lake Forest Park

(Stay tuned for the rest of the week in Part 2.)

Double-Decker Cherry

 

3/9/26 Crown Hill neighborhood

Plenty of buds yet to open!

Following up on a hot tip from Mary Jean, I drove over to Crown Hill to check out an unusual cherry tree. While I typically see this variety pruned into a traditional umbrella shape, this one had been trained into a unique double decker of branches. Its blossoms were still at only about 50 percent, so it has a lot more to go, but given our weather forecast – heavy precipitation and unseasonably cold temps – I wasn’t going to take any chances by waiting.

Kenmore Upright

 

3/8/26 Kenmore Progressive upright vacuum cleaner with "True HEPA Filtration"

Like many offspring of parents who had lived through the depression, I grew up hearing the message that if something was still functional, it should continue to be used and never wasted. To replace an appliance simply because it was annoying was unheard of.

For most of my life, I abided by that value. That’s why for many years (decades, actually), I cursed our extraordinarily heavy, loud, cumbersome Kenmore upright vacuum cleaner every time I used it. Bright “utility yellow,” which apparently had been popular for cars, appliances and other stuff back in the ‘90s, it seemed to get increasingly heavy, loud and difficult to push. But I am my mother’s daughter, and push it I did.

Somewhere around the time that I accepted that my life with Greg would no longer be the same as I had always envisioned it, my attitude started to change. When faced with some tedious task, you know how we dismiss it by saying, “Life’s too short for that”? I took that expression to heart in a literal way. When I think of all that he wanted to do, would have done, and will no longer, I remind myself: Life is too damn short for many, many things.

How much of my remaining time on earth do I want to spend pushing a vacuum cleaner that is extraordinarily heavy, loud and cumbersome (not to mention utility yellow)? Last week, I answered that question without even finishing the room. I immediately started researching a replacement, and by the end of the day, I had ordered a “stick” style vacuum cleaner that weighs less than 10 pounds. As a side benefit, its detachable handheld unit will replace my portable dust buster that also annoys me (I hadn’t yet gotten around to replacing it).

My new Shark PowerDetect Ultra-Light came the other day, and I finished vacuuming the floor. It’s so much lighter, quieter and easier to maneuver! I wish I’d replaced that old Kenmore years ago! Buh-bye, utility yellow.

Pink Trees are Here! (Plus Re-Discovery of Pentel Sign Brush Pen)

 

3/7/26 Plum tree, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Seeing a decent dry block in the morning’s forecast, I took a long walk through the ‘hood to check out the pink tree situation. I’ve been seeing ornamental plums blooming for weeks now, but with their dark foliage and tiny blossoms, plums don’t show off big fluffy pink clouds, so I tend not to sketch many. The first sketch (at left), though, does include a plum in the corner. I was actually more interested in the twin firs that had been butchered.

Next I saw a row of cherries that were just getting started (below). The blossoms were still sparse; more interesting were the weird “feet” of their exposed roots! Oftentimes I find the roots of trees more fascinating than anything else about them, especially in winter when their crowns are bare.

Paper notes: That’s a wrap for the partially used Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook that I had decided to finish as my daily-carry sketch journal (it didn’t have as many pages left as I had thought). While it’s been fun to have white paper for adding color, there’s a lot not to love about this particular white sketchbook. For one, Beta paper, which was a favorite for years, just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Now that Hahnemühle’s 100 percent cotton has taught me how much fun it is to be able to slam down multiple layers of water-soluble materials and lots of water without harming the surface, it’s hard to go back.

3/7/26 Cherry trees

Worse, though, is the 3 ½-by-5 ½-inch format. You’d think that would be close enough to a true A6 (4-by-6 inches) or Uglybooks' almost-A6 (4-by-5 ¾ inches) not to make a difference, but as you can see from these sketches, they look too narrow for their height. After getting used to Uglybooks’ comfy page, I felt horizontally cramped. It was such a relief to go back to an Uglybook!

Brush pen notes: One commitment I made to myself during my downsizing process was to “shop” from my own stash before buying anything new. Several months ago, I went through all my brush pens to review what their brushes felt like and make a clear division between the ones containing water-soluble ink and waterproof ink (at some point, they had been neatly separated, but that system apparently fell apart).

That’s when I came across the Pentel Artist Brush Sign Pen with an ultra-fine brush. Of course, I had forgotten all about it. I probably didn’t use it much when I got it because it contains water-soluble ink, which is less versatile than waterproof for the way I like to work. But look at that tip (image below)! The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen has long been a favorite for its slender tip, but the Sign Pen’s brush is even finer. As much as I love the Pocket Brush Pen, I’ve often felt that my results are better when I use it with a slightly larger sketchbook, and I often feel cramped when using an A6.

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen vs. Pentel Artist Sign Brush Pen. The difference is especially noticeably in my writing, which is often where I have the least control of the line.

The Brush Sign Pen has the slimmest brush tip of any I’ve used. After it went dry last week at the zoo, I was supposed to shop from my stash again – but that ultra-fine brush won me over: I bought another one. (A downside of the Sign Pen is that it’s not refillable, which is one of the Pocket Brush Pen’s major benefits.)

When I used it for months in my Uglybooks, I hardly noticed that the ink is water-soluble, since I rarely use water on colored pages. When I switched to the Beta, I had to be more aware of water-solubility because I was using color more often. The cherry tree sketch was a good opportunity to make the ink work with Caran d’Ache Neocolor II. After applying the color, I tried to spritz only where the color was, but fine-controlling the spritzer’s direction is difficult, and the branches got more water than I wanted. Still, the washed ink color is almost lavender when mixed with pinks – a nice shadow tone. I’ll probably stick with a waterbrush to activate colors when I use this brush pen going forward.

More pink for your viewing pleasure!